[Help-bash] OT: Extension to PATH environment variable's "API"

[Christof Warlich]

Hi,

I marked this as off-topic as this is not a request for help, but the 
suggestion of an idea to slightly extend the utility of the "PATH" 
environment variable that I'd like to discuss.

Currently, there are two options when installing new executables that 
should "just be found" through the "PATH" environment variable:

1) Adding the executables to a directory that typically is already part 
of the "PATH", e.g. "/usr/bin".
2) Putting the executables into a new, dedicated directory and adding 
that directory to the "PATH".

Both approaches have considerable disadvantages: The first one leads to 
cluttered directories (consider "/user/bin" on typical Linux 
distributions), missing the capability to group the binaries into the 
packages they belong to, while the second approach ultimately causes a 
long and cluttered "PATH". And both approaches more or less fail for 
executables with conflicting (i.e. same) names.

Instead, my idea would suggest to allow _subdirectories_ relative to the 
entries of the "PATH" when calling executables. An example may help to 
illustrate what I mean:

Consider the "/usr/bin" directory. Instead of putting all excutables 
there, "/usr/bin" would contain package subdirectories, each containing 
its related executables, e.g. "/usr/bin/arm/gcc", "/usr/bin/arm/g++", 
.... for an ARM toolchain. The "PATH" would still just only include 
"/usr/bin", but when calling e.g. "arm/gcc", Bash would find and execute 
"/usr/bin/arm/gcc".

Note that this would still allow users to call executables relative to 
the current working directory by prepending them with "./", i.e. 
"./arm/gcc", which is very similar to the current behavior considering 
that e.g. "./ls" would require an executable to be in the current 
working directory, whereas "ls" would be searched for by consulting "PATH".

Further note that this would only be a rather unlikely break w.r.t. 
backward compatibility, because currently, subdirectories of directories 
listed in the "PATH" hardly exist in the wild. And even in case of 
remaining compatibility concerns, this feature could be enabled by an 
option passed to bash, e.g. "-o subdirs".

What do you guys think: Does that make sense in a context of bash being 
a (much better) Bourne Shell? And is anyone aware of another shell that 
already has (an option to enable) this behavior?

Cheers,

Chris